It doesn’t really matter what you call the trip to Cuba that California Assembly Speaker Toni G. Atkins and a passel of legislators and staff are planning for next week. Trade mission or junket or learning expedition, it all equals the same thing: a chance for lobbyists to spend a little quality time with, and money on, the state’s lawmakers.

Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) is leading a delegation of nine California legislators and 18 other state officials on a five-day trade mission to Cuba starting on Monday.
As the Obama administration seeks to normalize relations with...

Twenty-five state lawmakers flew to Maui in November to attend a conference that was partly funded by a group of special interests, but it was not until Tuesday that all of their identities were made public when they were required to file annual gift...

Four months after California voters lowered penalties for certain crimes, state lawmakers and law enforcement officials are lining up with proposals to repeal portions of the new law that they say have created unintended consequences, such as reducing the...

The state finally has stepped up its once-weak effort to get unemployment benefits more efficiently to nearly 3 million jobless Californians.
After several years of pitiful phone service, late payments, computer gaffes and bureaucratic delays, the...

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A meeting with Gov. Jerry Brown and Chevron executives was ending when an oil company official turned to Mary Nichols, California's top regulator for air pollution.
There was only so much Chevron could do to meet the state's rules, he told her. "I know we've told you before that we couldn't do things that you wanted us to do, and then we've turned around and succeeded," he said. "But this time we really mean it."
The October conversation, recalled by Nichols in a recent interview, echoed many others...

Stung by losses in the November election, the California Legislature's Democratic majority arrives for the first day of a new session Monday facing a political terrain more hostile to tax increases and other priorities of liberal lawmakers.
The Democrats' failure to win a supermajority in either the Senate or Assembly, after capturing both just two years ago, is expected to produce a more centrist agenda and give more clout to moderate Democrats and Republicans.
The political shift probably dooms...

The state’s powerful prison guard union has agreed to pay $5,500 in fines for failing to properly disclose nearly $25,000 in gifts it provided to state lawmakers during a three-year period.
The gifts include lodging, meals, wine and spa bags for state legislators at the annual Governor's Cup Foundation golf tournament in Pebble Beach.
The enforcement staff of the state Fair Political Practices Commission is recommending the fines, a fraction of the maximum penalties, against the California...

Gov. Jerry Brown has vetoed two little-noticed bills that would have expanded a special injury leave program that pays California's emergency responders 100% of their salaries, tax-free, when they're out with claimed ailments.
Monday's action came a day after a Times investigation found the frequency, length and cost of such leaves in Los Angeles has increased sharply over the last five years.
The city paid more than $328 million in salaries, medical bills and other expenses for injured public...

A measure that would require employers to give employees at least three paid sick days a year cleared the Assembly on Thursday, overcoming fierce opposition from business groups.
The bill, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), would make employees eligible to accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Employers would be able to limit the use of that paid leave to three days per year. If signed into law, the measure would go into effect in July 2015.
"We want basically...

It's "back-to-basics" time at the state unemployment insurance program, where a new director, more staff and fewer computer problems are reviving a troubled agency.
Although the Employment Development Department's many critics are taking a wait-and-see attitude, improvements seem to be taking hold.
With hundreds of newly hired or retained workers on duty, EDD says it now answers more than 7 of 10 calls from claimants rather than automatically disconnecting callers before they speak to a real person....